Louie, Louie Go Home

Any aspiring British rock band tried to nab the latest American record and cut its version first, and somehow a grubby bunch of amateurs like Davie Jones and the King Bees got a brand-new track by Paul Revere and the Raiders and beat all rivals to the studio. They could do this mainly because Paul Revere and the Raiders, in spring 1964, might as well have been a fictional band in the UK–they were a regional American band with no UK chart hits. So who knows how Bowie & Co. came across this song: perhaps their producer Leslie Conn, who had ties to Dick James (the Beatles’ song publisher) had suggested it.

“Louie Go Home” was the Raiders’ sequel to “Louie Louie.” The Raiders had battled with the Kingsmen throughout 1963 as to whose cover of “Louie, Louie” would chart higher, until Mitch Miller at Columbia killed promotion on the Raiders’ single after the Kingsmen finally started charting nationally. The Raiders’ “Louie Go Home” is a murky New Orleans R&B stew-the track is built on the piano, the left-hand riff doubled by saxophone and bass, all overlaid by a churning, clanking layer of percussion.

The Raiders were a stage band, so “Louie Go Home” is a series of shticks to rev up an audience–a breakdown, a call-and-response vocal, some “little bit softer now, little bit louder now” audience bait. Bowie and the King Bees dutifully try to imitate it all, but the result is thin gruel: lacking a piano, the King Bees have to weigh the riff entirely on the bass while the guitars hit on the off-beat; the drummer does his best to kill the groove, thwacking away as if determined to frustrate prospective dancers.

If “Liza Jane” took the Stones as a cue, it’s b-side is more Beatles–the vocal harmonies in the bridge are close to those in the Beatles’ version of “Money” (at 1:10, it sounds as if they’re about to sing “that’s…what I want”) while Bowie seems to be imitating John Lennon singing “Twist and Shout.”

Originally penciled in as the A-side but wisely switched, as it lacks the punch of “Liza Jane.” Earnest, clumsy, not too terrible.

Louie Louie – On Stooges, “I wanna be your dog” album, is worth a listen – if you can get over the album cover; but best Stooges must be on Metallic KO. What a version. What a story. Then 20 years later Iggy turns the tap on again, with new free flowing Adlibs on American Ceasar.